Log-structured file system for disk drives with shingled writing

ABSTRACT

Data is written to a hard disk drive using shingled writing principles, i.e., each data track is partially overwritten when an immediately contiguous data track is written. One or more contiguous data tracks establish a band, and a band establishes a respective segment in a log-structured file system.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to hard disk drives.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

In current hard disk drives, data is written in concentric circulartracks by a magnetic recording head which is positioned above a spinningdisk. The magnetic recording head consists of a write head element whichis used during writing, and a read head element which is used duringreading. During writing, the position of the magnetic recording headabove the disk is precisely controlled by a servomechanical feedbackloop so that the written data tracks do not overlap. The width of eachtrack is determined by the width of the write head element. Thecenter-to-center spacing of each track (also known as the track pitch)is slightly larger than the track width, and is determined by theservomechanical control system which keeps the head properly positionedabove the disk. Each track is separated from its neighbor by a guardband whose width is equal to the track pitch minus the track width.During read back, the read back element in the recording head isprecisely positioned above a single track. The width of the read backelement is usually equal to or smaller than the width of a writtentrack, so that the read head element detects the signal from only thatsingle track and not from neighboring tracks.

With current hard disk drives, each track may be randomly written at anytime without disturbing the data on any of the other tracks. Thisability to randomly access the data on the surface of the disk is animportant characteristic of hard disk drives which is not shared by alldata storage systems.

In U.S. Pat. No. 6,185,063, incorporated herein by reference, a methodof writing tracks in partially overlapping fashion is described. Thisoverlapping writing fashion can be referred to as “shingled trackwriting”. Specifically, with shingled track writing, data tracks axewritten such that each written track partially overlaps an immediatelyadjacent track that is contiguous to it, like shingles on a tiled roof.Thus, a first track is partially overwritten when a second trackcontiguous to the first is written, which in turn is partiallyoverwritten when a third track contiguous to the second is written, andso on.

As recognized herein, unlike the conventional approach described above,the write head width advantageously can be significantly larger than thetrack pitch in shingled track writing, whereas the width of the readback head element can be slightly less than the track pitch so the readback head still detects signal from only a single track and not fromneighboring tracks.

The present invention recognizes that although, for reasons discussedmore fully below, shingled writing can result in higher data storagedensity, it may not allow for random access writes to any arbitrarytrack, because to rewrite one track it may also be necessary tooverwrite some of the information stored on subsequent adjacent tracks.The present invention recognizes that it is possible to update data on atrack using a multi-step process, in which the data from neighboringtracks is copied elsewhere, the desired track rewritten, and thenneighboring tracks are restored to their original state. However, it isno longer possible to update the data on any arbitrary track in a singlestep, and so some of the random access properties of the storagemechanism are sacrificed. As critically recognized by the presentinvention but not the above-referenced patent, a consequence is that adisk drive which uses shingled track writing may require a differentkind of file system structure from a conventional hard disk drive.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

A hard disk drive (HDD) includes at least one rotatable disk and atleast one write element configured for writing data to the disk,potentially using perpendicular recording principles. Two or morecontiguous tracks, which are partially overlapped using shingledwriting, constitute a band. The storage area of the HDD can bepartitioned into isolated tracks and bands of tracks, where shingledwriting is used in each band. A HDD controller controls the writeelement and uses a segmented log-structured file system where eachsegment corresponds to a respective band or isolated track.

The log-structured file system can preferably use an error correctioncode (ECC) block size that is larger than a physical sector size of thedisk. A cumulative ECC parity state between successive partial writes ofan ECC block is retained.

The preferred non-limiting log-structured file system uses a virtualaddress table (VAT) to implement shingled track writing. The VAT mapsvirtual sector locations to actual sector locations. The VAT may bestored on the disk in a location with non-overlapping tracks whererandom access writes can be performed, and/or in a region with shingledwritten bands, using a log structured storage approach. The VAT may beaccessed by a RAID controller in a RAID system to which the HDD belongs,to remap sectors as required for shingled track writing.

In another aspect, a data storage system includes disk means for storingdata and means for writing data to the disk in tracks and bands. Two ormore tracks establishes a band, and at least some bands are shingled.Means are provided for controlling the means for writing. The means forcontrolling uses a log means for establishing a file system.

In still another aspect, a redundant array of independent disks (RAID)system includes a RAID controller and a plurality of hard disk drives.Each disk drive includes at least one storage disk and a drivecontroller reading data from and writing data to the disk. The drivecontroller for each disk drive is coupled to the RAID controller.According to present principles, the drive controller for each drivewrites data in shingled bands using a log-structured file system.

The details of the present invention, both as to its structure andoperation, can best be understood in reference to the accompanyingdrawings, in which like reference numerals refer to like parts, and inwhich:

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a schematic view of the hard disk drive, showing the actuatorarm near the inner diameter (ID) and the outer diameter (OD) of thedisk;

FIG. 2 is a perspective schematic view of the shingled data tracks ofthe disk, with portions broken away;

FIG. 3 is schematic diagram of a log-structured file system on a disk;and

FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram of the virtual address table (VAT).

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT

Referring initially to FIG. 1, a data storage system is shown, generallydesignated 10, which includes one or more (only one shown for clarity)rotatable hard disks 12 onto which data can be written and from whichdata can be read by a read/write head 14 that is mounted on an actuatorarm 16 for movement of the head 14 over the disk 12 between an innerdiameter (ID) 18 of a data storage area 20 of the disk 12 (indicated atposition 22 of the head 14) and an outer diameter 24 of the storage area20 (indicated at position 26 of the head 14). The head 14 and actuator16 may be controlled by a processor such as a hard disk drive (HDD)controller 28, which executes the below-described shingled writing andfile architecture in accordance with present principles. The controller28 may also access a solid state data cache or buffer 30.

In accordance with HDD principles known in the art and as figurativelyshown in FIG. 1, the head 14 may include a write element 32 and a readelement 34. The head 14 may be configured for longitudinal recording orfor perpendicular recording.

As shown in FIG. 2, data is written into the data storage area 20 inshingled fashion. More particularly, a first (in the example shown,outermost) data track 36 is overlapped by a second data track 38 that isimmediately adjacent (i.e., contiguous) to the first data track 36, justto the inside of the first track 36, when data is written to the seconddata track 38. In turn, when data is written to a third data track 40that is contiguous to the second data track 38, the second data track 38is overlapped by the third track. Similarly, when data is written to afourth data track 42 that is contiguous to the third data track 40, thethird data track 40 is overlapped by the fourth track. When data iswritten to a fifth data track 44 that is contiguous to the fourth datatrack 42, the fourth data track 42 is overlapped by the fifth track. Ifthe fifth track 44 is the last track in a band, it is not overlapped byany other track. It is to be understood that the pattern of overlappingmay be reversed, i.e., the first track 36 might overlay, instead ofunderlay, the second track 38, and so on. While only five data tracksare shown for clarity of disclosure, a band can contain many more datatracks.

In accordance with the present invention, a band is established by atleast two contiguous data tracks. In a non-limiting implementation, thedata storage area 20 or portion thereof might be subdivided intoisolated tracks and bands, with different numbers of tracks in eachband, depending on the system requirements. Thus, if high-throughputrandom access writing is required as might be the case for conventionalinformation technology (IT) data storage applications, isolated tracksmay be used to store data, whereas bands containing multiple overlappingtracks may be used when random access writing is less important, as inthe case of storing AV files.

As also shown in FIG. 2, the width “W” of the write element 32 shown inFIG. 1 is larger than the track pitch “P” (essentially, thenon-overlapped portion of the width of a data track). The width of theread element 34, however, is slightly less than the track pitch P, sothat the read element 34 reads only signals from a single track. Withthe relatively wide write element width “W”, the write element 32 cangenerate higher fields at the disk 12, allowing disk coercivities toincrease, grain sizes to decrease, and resulting in increased overallrecording density.

A second advantage afforded by the above combination of structure isthat the track pitch “P” need not be directly related to the write headwidth “W” (except for the last track in a band), so that tolerancesconstraining the write head width “W” can be relaxed.

In the present invention a segmented log-structured file systempreferably is implemented in which the data is permanently stored in alog consisting of segments containing indexing information along withthe data. Such a system is disclosed in Rosenblum et al., “The Designand Implementation of a Log-Structured File System”, paper published bythe University of California, Electrical Engineering and ComputerScience Division (Berkeley), July 1991, reprinted in ACM Transactions onComputer Systems, vol. 10, pp. 26-52 and incorporated herein byreference, although the referenced publication fails to envisionshingled track writing and other novel aspects set forth herein. A moredetailed reference on log structured file systems can be found in “TheDesign and Implementation of a Log-Structured File System” (KluwerInternational Series in Engineering and Computer Science, 303) by MendelRosenblum.

By way of brief review, a segmented log structured file systempartitions the storage space into segments, with each segment consistingof a large region of contiguous disk space. As implemented herein, eachsegment of the log structure is established by a respective one of theabove-described bands, wherein a band has two or more data tracks,although in some implementations a small segment may be implemented witha single isolated track or even a portion of a track.

In reference to FIG. 3, data can be written using streamed writes into asingle log structure which spans multiple segments. As the disk spacefills up, a garbage collection mechanism runs in the background andcleans out segments which are not fully used, thus freeing up segmentsto be used for writing new data. The new data added to the log structureis threaded through the old data on a segment by segment basis usingclean segments which have been freed up by the garbage collectionmechanism.

Using FIG. 3 as an exemplary reference, it being understood that theorder of data types and size of data types is for illustration only,each time a file is created or modified (say, “File 1” in FIG. 3), thenew data are written to the end of the log, including data sectors 50, anew inode structure 52 to identify the locations of all of the datablocks in the file, and an inode map 54 which identifies the locationsof all of the modes on the disk. A “directory” information region 56containing data on the file's directory can also be written to the log.If desired, some additional data structures (not shown) may be writtento the log to assist in the garbage collection process, to help, forexample, in identifying which segments should be cleaned. These includea segment summary data structure for each segment which includesinformation about the role of each of the data blocks stored in thatsegment. Also, a segment usage table may be written to the end of thelog to provide information about the amount of active data stored ineach segment, so that the garbage collection mechanism can decide whichsegments to clean next. The file system may also implement a checkpointregion located at a fixed position on the disk (not part of the logstructure) which contains some metadata information such as pointers tothe most recent written inode map, and the most recently written segmentusage table.

In any case, as implemented in the present shingled writingarchitecture, each band (that represents a segment of the log structure)may be written in a fixed direction, either toward the disk outsidediameter (OD) as might be the case for inner bands or toward the diskinside diameter (ID) as might be the case for outer bands, to accountfor the recording head geometry and the natural head skew relative tothe tracks within each band. The last track in each band may be widerthan the other tracks in the band.

Also, the physical sector size implemented in the present log structurepreferably is equivalent to the standard logical sector size assumed onmost IT systems (typically five hundred twelve (512) bytes). This isdesired so that single-sector transactions may be immediately written tothe log as soon as they are transferred to the hard disk drive.

Advantageously however, large error correction (ECC) block sizes withineach segment (band) are implemented by storing the intermediate ECCparity state after each partial write of an ECC block. In this case, theECC block size spans multiple physical sectors, and because of thelarger ECC block size the error correction code is more efficient andable to correct larger defect errors on the disk. The ECC code may beimplemented in a number of different ways which are well known to thoseskilled in the art of designing ECC codes.

The checkpoint region for the presently preferred log structured filesystem is written to a fixed location on the disk. The checkpoint regionis implemented using a ring buffer log structured storage area locatedwithin a single shingled written band. Multiple copies of the checkpointdata may be written to enhance data integrity.

It is possible to implement shingled track writing in a way which iscompletely transparent to the user of the disk drive. This would involvethe use of a large virtual address table (VAT) 58, shown in FIG. 4. Withthis architecture, most of the data would be written into a logstructure on the disk. The VAT 58 provides a mapping of each virtualsector location 60 (where the host thinks the sector is located) toactual sector location 62 (where the sector is actually located on thedisk). The virtual address table preferably is stored on the disk drive,either in a location with non-overlapping tracks where random accesswrites could be performed, or in a region with shingled written bands,using a log structured storage approach. The virtual address remappingmay be performed by a hard disk drive controller, or by a RAIDcontroller in a RAID system as required for shingled track writing.

While the particular LOG-STRUCTURED FILE SYSTEM FOR DISK DRIVES WITHSHINGLED WRITING as herein shown and described in detail is fullycapable of attaining the above-described objects of the invention, it isto be understood that it is the presently preferred embodiment of thepresent invention and is thus representative of the subject matter whichis broadly contemplated by the present invention, that the scope of thepresent invention fully encompasses other embodiments which may becomeobvious to those skilled in the art, and that the scope of the presentinvention is accordingly to be limited by nothing other than theappended claims, in which reference to an element in the singular is notintended to mean “one and only one” unless explicitly so stated, butrather “one or more”. It is not necessary for a device or method toaddress each and every problem sought to be solved by the presentinvention, for it to be encompassed by the present claims. Furthermore,no element, component, or method step in the present disclosure isintended to be dedicated to the public regardless of whether theelement, component, or method step is explicitly recited in the claims.No claim element herein is to be construed under the provisions of 35U.S.C. §112, sixth paragraph, unless the element is expressly recitedusing the phrase “means for” or, in the case of a method claim, theelement is recited as a “step” instead of an “act”. Absent expressdefinitions herein, claim terms are to be given all ordinary andaccustomed meanings that are not irreconcilable with the presentspecification and file history.

1. A data storage system comprising: disk means for storing data; meansfor writing data to the disk in tracks and bands, wherein at least twotracks establish a band and wherein at least some bands are shingled;and means for controlling the means for writing, the means forcontrolling using a log means for establishing a file system, whereinthe log means uses a virtual address table (VAT) to remap sectors asrequired for shingled track writing.
 2. The system of claim 1, whereinat least some bands include at least three contiguous tracks.
 3. Thesystem of claim 1, wherein the means for writing is configured forperpendicular recording.
 4. The system of claim 1, wherein the log meansuses an error correction code (ECC) block size larger than a physicalsector size of the disk means, a cumulative ECC parity state betweensuccessive partial writes of an ECC block being retained.
 5. The systemof claim 1, wherein the VAT maps virtual sector locations to actualsector locations.
 6. The system of claim 1, wherein the VAT is stored onthe disk means in at least one of: a location with non-overlappingtracks where random access writes can be performed, and a region withshingled written bands, using a log structured storage approach.
 7. Aredundant array of independent disks (RAID) system comprising a RAIDcontroller and a plurality of hard disk drives, each disk driveincluding at least one storage disk and at least one drive controllerreading data from and writing data to the disk, wherein the drivecontroller for each disk drive is coupled to the RAID controller, thedrive controller for each drive writing data in shingled bands using alog-structured file system.
 8. The RAID system of claim 7, wherein atleast some bands include at least three contiguous tracks.
 9. The RAIDsystem of claim 8, wherein the disk drives are configured forperpendicular recording.
 10. The RAID system of claim 8, wherein thelog-structured file system uses an error correction code (ECC) blocksize larger than a physical sector size of a disk, a cumulative ECCparity state between successive partial writes of an ECC block beingretained.
 11. The RAID system of claim 8, wherein the log-structuredfile system uses a virtual address table (VAT) to implement shingledtrack writing.
 12. The RAID system of claim 11, wherein the VAT mapsvirtual sector locations to actual sector locations.
 13. The RAID systemof claim 11, wherein the VAT is stored on the disk in at least one of: alocation with non-overlapping tracks where random access writes can beperformed, and a region with shingled written bands, using a logstructured storage approach.
 14. The RAID system of claim 11, whereinthe RAID controller accesses the VAT to remap sectors as required forshingled track writing.